Kids Reading Twilight..

Russell, N. (2010). Kids are reading...junk. The American Spectator. 

Reflections

The author wrote this article after the Association of American Publishers announced that Children's and Young Adult fiction sales had increased nearly 14% from the following year. At first glance, the numbers are awesome, but then she begins to break down the *enter gasp here* that children are reading (this is her words, not mine) TRASH!! Too bad that she thinks that Hunger Games, the Twilight series and the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are just that, trash. On a more hilarious note, she also suggested that instead of reading Hunger Games, ADULTS should choose to "let" their child read Animal Farm or 1984!!!! She can't be serious!!!! It was even worse when she suggested kids read Wuthering Heights instead of the lovesick romance of Bella and Edward. Who is this woman?!?! 

Sure I get it (at least I think that I do). Some tweens are reading books that well, they may not just understand mentally, but if it gets them interested in reading, why discourage it? It is up to the parent to monitor what their children are reading. I have a few tween boys and girls that come in and want to read Ellen Hopkins books or Chris Crutcher books and although it is not my duty to tell them what to read, I do let them know other books in our area that are like these books and give them a little disclaimer about the content that they will be reading about in these books. Most of the times kids just want to jump on the bandwagon of what is cool, my daughter is 7 and she begged me to read Twilight. I allowed it, and pretty much most of the content went over her head and she had nightmares for a week. She doesn't want to read the other books nor see the movies and unless she read them for herself she would have found some other way to read it. As a child, I was allowed to read whatever I wanted. I read the Flowers in the Attic series when I was 7 and the sex scene and incest topics went right over my head. Now some may argue what is the point of reading a book if you don't understand the content, and my answer is always, why not? I related to other parts of the books and to this day they are my guilty pleasure. We as librarians have to remember not to cross the censorship line and tell tweens that they shouldn't be reading Crutcher or Hopkins and in all reality, it is up to their parents and caregivers.